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Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Eva Moskowitz Comes to Rockaway as Nurse Ratched

Here are my 2 columns I submitted to The Wave for publication on Nov. 6. My theater column and my school column, both tied in together. By the way - if you want to come see me play the inept doctor in charge email me.
Do we have any photoshoppers out there who can do an Eva as Nurse Ratched for me?

School Scope: Nurse Ratched in Guise of Eva Moskowitz Coming to Rockaway?
By Norm Scott

There is so much about authoritarianism at a mental institution in Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, and its theater and film adaptations that I am reminded of how so many schools are run. I just finished my Rockaway Theatre Company column for The Wave about the upcoming show so if this column also makes this edition of The Wave, read the 2 columns in tandem.

Rumors are floating around that the evil charter empire, known as Eva Moskowitz’ Success Academy Charter network, wants in on Rockaway gentrification to fuel their charter gravy train that funnels public money out of public schools and into private management. There is no better example of authoritarianism that Eva Moskwitz who is the Nurse Ratched of education – and proud of it.

For those not aware, Nurse Ratched, as Wikipedia states, “is the head administrative nurse at… a mental institution where she exercises near-absolute power over the patients' access to medications, privileges, and basic necessities such as food and toiletries. She capriciously revokes these privileges whenever a patient displeases her. Her superiors turn blind eyes because she maintains order, keeping the patients from acting out, either through antipsychotic and anticonvulsant drugs or her own brand of psychotherapy, which consists mostly of humiliating patients into doing her bidding.” Nurse Ratched engages in an epic battle with rebel inmate Randall McMurphy (Jack Nicholson in the movie). In polls, Nurse Ratched came in 2nd to The Wicked Witch of the North as the most evil female character in movie history.

I saw a Halloween photo of a teacher dressed as the Wicked Witch of the West wearing an Eva Moskowitz mask. This was not an exaggeration. People have termed conditions for some children at Eva’s schools as verging on child abuse.

In my last School Scope column I talked about the extremely high suspension rates of kindergarten children at Success Academy charters as exposed on PBS by reporter John Merrow, who used to love charter schools, until he found out how so many of them operate. Since they are bound by a lottery system, some unwanted kids may slip in. So they use extraordinary discipline procedures starting in kindergarten to force the unwanted young children into more and more frustrating acts and harass the parents daily, hoping they will remove the children from the school. The idea is cull the herd before the kids start taking tests that count. Thus you will find that an kindergarten class has lost 40-50% of their children by the 3rd grade when testing begins. Eva argues that these kids don’t fit the culture of her schools – so they are mostly tossed back into the public schools which has to take every child.

Eva retaliated against the child who appeared on the PBS report by releasing a history of his records, a violation of federal FERPA laws. But Nurse Eva always believes she is above the law. Funny thing is that that child ended up in the class of Jia Lee, who is running for UFT president against Michael Mulgrew on the MORE slate, and she loves the kid.

NY Times reporter Kate Taylor followed up her exposure of Success Charters back in May with a follow-up last week of a “Got to Go” list of kids the school was going to pressure to leave (http://tinyurl.com/pqbfckc). This article caused such a sensation, Eva was forced to hold a press conference with the principal of the school standing there and crying and issue a mea culpa that this only happened at one of her schools. In a pig’s eye it did.

A comment left on my blog by an anonymous parent stated: “They decided to start with younger and younger kids, so the communication of abuses would be harder to decipher. They decided to tell the parents one thing, and do another to the child. I once stood in the hall and listened to a dean yell so violently at a student (behind closed doors) that I couldn't even discern the infraction. The child was thoroughly convinced he had committed a sin so unspeakable based on her threats, that he was too afraid to report the incident to his parents, hoping the she wouldn't either. When you get detention for squeaking the rubber soles on the floor, or coughing. or sneezing in a disingenuous way; when you are taught that asking for help when you are told not to talk, is a level 4 "disrespect of a teacher" your world begins to change. Twilight Zone comes to mind.”

Twilight Zone or asylum?

Stuyvesant HS teacher Gary Rubinstein blogged “When You “Got To Go”, You Got To Go” about the situation, publishing comments of parents who left Eva’s Gulag: http://tinyurl.com/obdrzdf.

Come see the RTC production of One Flew Over the Kuckoo’s Nest and see the Nurse Ratched as the model of Evil Moskowitz.

Norm admits to playing his own version of Randal McMurphy to his Nurse Ratched-like Principal. He can’t stop blogging about Evil at ednotesonline.com.

Memo from the RTC: Nurse Ratched Comes to Rockaway
By Norm Scott

“A
cold, heartless tyrant, Nurse Ratched has become the stereotype of the
nurse as a battleaxe. She has also become a popular metaphor for the
corrupting influence of power and authority in bureaucracies such as the
mental institution in which the novel is set. Nurse Ratched was named
the fifth-greatest villain in film history (and second-greatest
villainess, behind only the Wicked Witch of the West)” …. Louise
Fletcher won the Academy Award for her performance in the
movie…..Wikipedia.

And I play Nurse Ratched’s superior
(technically), a drug-addicted doctor, who she resents because if she
weren’t a woman in this early 1960s story would be in control but is
forced to manipulate her inept boss to maintain her iron-clad control.
Lynda Browning is playing Nurse Ratched in the upcoming RTC production
of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” as a follow-up to her astounding
performance as Bella in last spring’s “Lost in Yonkers.” Lynda is so
good she can turn on a dime from the sweetest person in the world while
joshing with the guys backstage into one scary lady once we are on
stage. Lynda also played the role 10 years ago when RTC did the play the
first time.

The nurse engages in an epic and
legendary battle with new inmate Randal McMurphy, a rebel who is
feigning mental illness to get out of a prison sentence and thinks he
can game the system. Jack Nicholson made his mark by playing the role in
the movie, which so many people loved. I did too ¬– until I found
myself in the less well-known play which has so much more impact than
the movie did. (And I’m hearing the novel is even better.) RTC newcomer
John Stillwaggon does not take a 2nd seat to Nicholson as McMurphy in
this must-see performance. John is an experienced actor and in this case
I would say he was born to play the McMurphy role.

And
oh those people playing the inmates. What a cast of characters and
top-level actors, some of whom don’t draw the line between acting and
being crazy. But more on them next time. Oh, and the Frank Ciati
designed and master builder Tony Homsey set is so reminiscent of a real
mental institution – or a school, which if you read my School Scope
column you will see the similarities. (Director Michael Wotypra, also a
teacher, constantly reminds me that Nurse Ratched is just another
version of so many supervisors we have seen in the school system.)

Opening
night is at 8PM on Friday the 13th – yikes – with other evening
performances on Nov. 14, 20, 21 and Sunday matinees at 2PM on Nov. 15,
22.

1 comment:

Comments are welcome. Irrelevant and abusive comments will be deleted, as will all commercial links. Comment moderation is on, so if your comment does not appear it is because I have not been at my computer (I do not do cell phone moderating).

UFT Election Vote Comparison: 2004-10

A Personal Historical Perspective

Why Karen Lewis Reads Ed Notes

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

7 weeks Old - Nov. 2011

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Hedges says, There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history.

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

GEM's Julie Cavanagh Debates E4E member on NY1 on LIFO and Seniority

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy TysonProfessor of African American Studies and HistoryDuke University

A Familiar Voice on Unions

"We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike"- Adolf Hitler, May 2, 1933

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Outsource our children

Harlem $ucce$$ Academy Ad

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

Teacher Value-Added Data Dumping by Norm Scott

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

From Sharon Higgins

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Video of Chicago's George Schmidt and CORE Shredding Arne Duncan and the Chicago Corporate Model

Great Post on Teacher Quality at the Morton School

I'm very tired of the myth that schools are bursting at the seams with apathetic, unskilled, surly, child-hating losers who can't get jobs doing anything else. I recently figured that, counting high school and college where one encounters many teachers in the course of a year, I had well over 100 teachers in my lifetime, and I can only say that one or two truly had no place being in a classroom.